How to get billionaires to talk to you
Building relationships with billionaires is an extremely high leverage activity.
You can use those relationships to advance your career, raise money for causes, or learn secret information about the world or your industry.
Step by step, here’s how I do this (and how you can too):
1. I use Crunchbase or the Forbes 400 to find interesting people I want to talk to.
2. I use Rocketreach or Whitepages to find their contact info.
3. I research them to answer several important questions, the most important one being: “how can I add value?”
4. I write a cold call script, one for what to say if they answer, another for what to say if they don’t and I get sent to voice mail. Here’s a voice mail script that’s worked on a few people.
5. I call them.
6. I schedule a follow up date to call again (if I don’t hear back the first time).
7. Optional: I write a concise email which demonstrates my value, and gives a clear, low friction ask. I’ve shown you examples of how to do this (e.g. this email).
8. Optional: I write 3 follow up emails (or texts) and schedule them at intervals over the next few weeks. These emails often use ideas from Cialdini’s book like social proof, reciprocity, and scarcity.
At any point in the engagement, you should be constantly trying to figure out: “how can I add value?”
Examples of this include:
1. Sending them tactical tips to scale their biz. This is an example of how I do this.
2. Complimenting them. Real, thoughtful compliments on something they’ve done or produced. Not fluffy vague comments.
3. Seeing that they’ve asked for help with something on social media & suggesting a plan of action.
If you’re worried you’ll annoy some people doing this, you’re right. Not a good reason to not do it. No one has ever gotten anywhere without rubbing some people in the wrong way. (This is not an invitation to be reckless in your outreach or to persist with people who outright tell you to leave them alone haha).
If you’re worried that these people get far too much competition, you’re wrong. They don’t. Most people pre-reject themselves from taking swings like this or have never considered doing it. It’s easier to build a relationship with a high profile individual than get into a “prestigious” institution like Facebook and it often has a higher payoff value.
If you’re worried that you’re under-qualified, you’re wrong. You have skills and experiences that people can leverage. You just need to know how to play the game.
Have fun - let me know if you try this out.
-Kareem
LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kareem-abukhadra-982087135/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/KareemAbukhadra
P.S. I run an accelerator where I partner with the most ambitious job seekers. Together, we dominate the job search process and land the best possible role in the quickest amount of time.
This includes landing offers at Fortune 500s and startups with $10MN+ in funding.
Interested in partnering with me?
Apply here: https://joinrelentless.com/